Rapoon, Alien Glyph Morphology (Caciocavallo)

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Rapoon is an alchemist, turning base metal into gold. Listen closely, and you will detect, at the very bottom of music, an array of rusted junk strewn willy-nilly on the ground, serving no purpose. Rapoon beats on it, bows it, treats its sounds in sonic alchemical baths, and utterly transforms it into something new, strange, and alien.

Alien Glyph Morphology is obviously a set which means something special to him: It was first released on DVD, a video set to music. Then came a double 10" vinyl set, and now a "conventional" CD. Aside from the handsome oversized wallet which contains it, the contents are almost the same as the vinyl - two tracks have been extended and a new one, "Condensed Nightmares", added. While this listener would hardly compare the track to a bad dream, it does hold the added attraction of featuring the seldom heard voice of Robin Storey, singing desultory nonsense syllables along with the bare melody.

Compared with much of his gigantic discography, this piece demands a bit more attention. Rather than being strictly ambient music, his usual stomping grounds, the music of Alien Glyph Morphology sounds like jazz played in the bars where the weirder figures of the beat generation´s imagination might hide out - all moving slo-mo in a murky, syrupy haze. In the case of a couple of crisper pieces (like "The Paranoia of Abstraction"), I am reminded of Brian Eno´s attempt at "alien jazz" on "The Drop".

At the very outset of the album, a voice rambles on in the background, offering you the choice of listening to what it has to say - is it anything worthwhile? - or dig it as just one stream of sound along with the others. Be reassured that less attention-grabbing, amorphous drift is still one component, at least, as evidenced by the rather lighthearted, thirteen-minute "Welcome to the Space Age" that follows. However, the very next track snaps its fingers in your face demanding your attention once again, with a background of detourned ethnic sacral chants interplaying with one another in the background. A later track, "Stealth Coming", is what I would characterize as "classic Rapoon" - a low percussive rumble dominates over which play a panorama of northern lights, shapeshifting and disembodied, voices and signs in the sky.

Storey has stated that he hopes his music is appreciated as above all "human", that listeners understand that it is about that most exclusively human impulse, curiosity, and the search for meaning where there is none. This album is some kind of ethnographic travelogue sent from the outer limits - of what? The meaning is in the search, and the works of Robin Storey are among those which make the search rewarding.